After condemning mead and those who drink it via its insufferable “Dilly, Dilly” Bud Light commercials, Anheuser-Busch is now producing its own “honey alcohol beverage,” a sparkling mead called “b.”
The brand comes in two flavors, b Honey Water and Blueberry; and b Honey Water and Cherry. The 100-calorie, 3.5-percent-ABV drink is being marketed as an alternative, basically, to Bud Light.
According to Anheuser-Busch brewmaster Nick Offredi, b is “for when you want to play the game but not necessarily go that hard.” Helpful. It’s also, he says, “great for the summer, in the park or at a barbecue,” and definitely “not an autumnal mead.”
It’s mead.
How does b taste? We’ll spill the tea: In a flavored malt beverage tasting that included nearly 50 spiked seltzers and similar beverages, panelists described b Cherry as having “chlorine,” “plastic,” and “Strawberry Shortcake Doll” aromas. As for b Blueberry, flavor notes included “old soap,” “old beer,” and “not refreshing.”
Sorry, b.
